Why wear wedding white?

Gen Z and economics. Chinese new year, our Chicken Rice. Travel tips. Narrative Plenitude. Virginia Woolf craftsmanship. meet-ups.

• Culture: why wedding dresses are white? 

• Culture: Chinese new year, our Chicken Rice; Lou Hei and new traditions 

• Economics: Kyla Scanlon on Gen Z and economics 

• Transport: UK trains better than Germany

• Travel: Kevin Kelly travel tips  

• Disability: Movies and narrative plenitude; singing on the bus 

• My friend Chi Thai’s book on her immigration story

• Writing Craft: Virginia Woolf craftsmanship, delivered over the radio in 1937.

• Events: London meet-up 17 March; unofficial EV Unconference 26 April, me in Boston next week. Home Ed links.

In recent years, we have gone to my distant cousins over Chinese New Year (check out Felicity's Substack on her writing and family life including Chinese New Year where she figures out what are made-up traditions or not). Some years, we do the “prosperity toss”. It turns out that this toss is newer tradition coming from Malaysia / Singapore. (via internet and GPT):

What is the Prosperity Toss?

• Yusheng (鱼生) is a colorful raw fish salad that includes sliced raw fish (traditionally salmon), shredded vegetables, pickled ingredients, crunchy toppings, and a sweet-and-savory sauce.

• The highlight is the Lo Hei (捞起), which means "tossing up" in Cantonese—diners gather around the table and toss the salad high into the air while chanting auspicious phrases for prosperity, health, and good luck.

• It is believed that the higher you toss, the greater your fortune in the coming year.

GPT traces the roots:

Earliest Records: The practice of eating raw fish salad dates back to ancient China, where it was common in Guangdong (Cantonese) cuisine. However, the specific prosperity toss version as we know it today is a 20th-century creation from Southeast Asia.

Modern Invention (1960s): The current ritualized tossing of Yusheng was popularized in Singapore in the 1960s by a group of chefs known as the "Four Heavenly Kings" of Cantonese cuisine—they refined and standardized the dish with a symbolic meaning for the Chinese New Year.

Spread Across the Region: It quickly became a significant Lunar New Year custom in Malaysia and Singapore, later spreading to Hong Kong, Indonesia, and even Chinese communities worldwide.

In my Climate Bigly show (with David Finnigan), we speculate about a cultural moment which could transform the narrative around sustainability. I joke about whether it could be Donald Trump vs Greta Thunberg in a dance off. But, I can see now that this type of cultural moment is very possible and can shape our beliefs strongly - although seemingly perhaps hard to manufacture intentionally.

The Lo Hei also reminds me of my story on Hainanese Chicken Rice. Despite the name of the dish, there is no original “Hainanese chicken rice" in Hainan. The immigrants from Hainan, as they moved to south east Asia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and beyond had to make do with what they had to hand. The dish was brought back to Hainan island from SE Asia. Food travels like that, think of dishes with chili or potatoes both originating in the Americas.

My blog on our recipe and thoughts here.

It remains my favourite dish my Mum cooks and the dish I’d recommend at my funeral that I mention in the recent performance: My Death Show.

I like the idea of starting new traditions. In many ways, in our family, JP has done this for us. Cultural ideas do shift in generations.

Last substack, I wrote about how we came to equate diamonds with love (short answer: de Beers + marketing). Catherine Oliver (home school substack) raised the question of white for wedding dresses. I thought GPT was interesting on this.

Ancient and Medieval Weddings: The Early Years

1. Ancient Rome (circa 27 BC – 476 AD)

   • Roman brides often wore a white tunic called a tunica recta, symbolizing purity and chastity. It was accompanied by a bright orange veil (flammeum), which signified warmth, fertility, and the transition to married life.

2. Medieval Europe (5th–15th Century)

   • Weddings were primarily political and economic alliances, with little focus on the bride's dress color. Brides from noble and royal families wore luxurious fabrics like silk, velvet, and fur, often dyed in bright colors, especially red, blue, and gold, which symbolized wealth and status.

   • White was worn occasionally, but not as a rule. It sometimes represented innocence but was also impractical due to cleaning difficulties.

Early Modern Period: White as a Sign of Prestige

3. Renaissance & Tudor Period (15th–17th Century)

   • Some wealthy brides in the Renaissance era wore white to showcase their family’s affluence, as white fabric was expensive and difficult to keep clean.

   • Mary, Queen of Scots, controversially wore white for her wedding to the French Dauphin Francis in 1558. However, white was considered a mourning color in France at the time.

4. 17th & 18th Century: White Still Rare

   • Most brides continued to wear their finest dress, regardless of color.

Queen Victoria: The Catalyst for White Wedding Gowns

5. Queen Victoria’s Wedding (1840)

   • Queen Victoria married Prince Albert on February 10, 1840, wearing a white silk satin gown with Honiton lace.

   • Unlike previous royal brides, she deliberately chose white, not to symbolize purity, but to support the struggling British lace industry.

   • Her decision was unusual at the time because royal weddings typically featured gold, silver, and other luxurious colors.

   • The wedding was widely publicized, and images of her white dress influenced fashion across Europe and North America.

6. The Victorian Era & White’s Symbolism (Mid–Late 19th Century)

   • White became associated with innocence, virtue, and the idea of the bride as a blank slate entering marriage.

   • The Industrial Revolution made white fabric more affordable, allowing middle-class brides to emulate the aristocracy.

   • The concept of a "one-time" wedding dress also became more common, whereas before, brides often wore dresses they could reuse for formal occasions.

The 20th Century: White Becomes the Norm

7. Early 1900s: Reinforcing the Tradition

   • By the early 20th century, white wedding dresses became a standard in Western societies.

   • The rise of photography further cemented the trend, as white looked elegant in black-and-white photographs.

8. Post-War Boom (1950s–1970s)

   • The 1950s, influenced by Hollywood and Christian Dior’s designs, further romanticized the white wedding gown.

   • Princess Grace Kelly's 1956 wedding to Prince Rainier III of Monaco in an intricate white lace gown reinforced the ideal.

   • The 1960s and 1970s saw some experimentation with color, but white remained dominant.

9. Modern Era (1980s–Present)

   • Princess Diana’s extravagant white gown in 1981 became one of the most iconic wedding dresses in history, solidifying the tradition for another generation.

   • Today, while many cultures incorporate different colors, white remains the most popular choice in Western weddings, signifying elegance, tradition, and celebration.

Conclusion: White as a Wedding Standard

While Queen Victoria played a crucial role in making white wedding dresses fashionable, the tradition existed in various forms before her. Over time, white evolved from a symbol of wealth and status to one of purity and romance, deeply ingrained in Western culture. Today, while personal choice and cultural traditions influence wedding attire, the white dress remains a powerful symbol of matrimonial joy. T…his is heavily GPT but I think seems correct and intriguing on cultural change.

I found Kyla Scanlon (younger persons economics commentator) take on thinking about how Gen Z thinks about the world interesting. While of course generalisations cover many things, but can still be interesting to point out trends.

Scanlon argues (for US Gen Z):

• Gen Z faces a double disruption: AI-driven technological change and institutional instability

• Three distinct Gen Z cohorts have emerged, each with different relationships to digital reality

• A version of the barbell strategy is splitting career paths between "safety seekers" and "digital gamblers"

• Our fiscal reality is quite stark right now, and that is shaping how young people see opportunities

…young people are facing a double disruption - (1) technological creative destruction in the form of AI combined with (some form of) political creative destruction in the form of the Trump administration. When I talk to young people from New York or Louisiana or Tennessee or California or DC or Indiana or Massachusetts about their futures, they're not just worried about finding jobs, they're worried about whether or not the whole concept of a "career" as we know it will exist in five years.

….I [Kyla] think there are three groups of Gen Z, all of whom have fundamentally different relationships to digital reality.

• Gen Z 1.0: The Bridge Generation: This group watched the digital transformation happen in real-time, experiencing both the analog and internet worlds during formative years. They might view technology as a tool rather than an environment. They're young enough to navigate digital spaces fluently but old enough to remember alternatives. They (myself included) entered the workforce during Covid and might have severe workplace interaction gaps because they missed out on formative time during their early years.

• Gen Z 1.5: The Covid Cohort: This group hit major life milestones during a global pandemic. They entered college under Trump but graduated under Biden. This group has a particularly complex relationship with institutions. They watched traditional systems bend and break in real-time during Covid, while simultaneously seeing how digital infrastructure kept society functioning.

• Gen Z 2.0: The Digital Natives: This is the first group that will be graduate into the new digital economy. This group has never known a world without smartphones. To them, social media could be another layer of reality. Their understanding of economic opportunity is completely different from their older peers.

Check out her substack here.

Financial Times analysis of railway data shows Germany’s state-owned rail group Deutsche Bahn consistently delivering one of the least reliable services in central Europe — and even when compared with the UK network, which is routinely criticised for poor performance at home and abroad. 

Article here (I have gift articles if you need, reply if you want one).

Kevin Kelly travel tips. In 2022, I wrote a while ago about Kevin Kelly’s extraordinary travel photos. (H/T Tyler Cowen) Kelly is one of the most travelled person in the world He has a list of 50 intriguing travel tips including:

Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations. An itinerary based on obscure cheeses, or naval history, or dinosaur digs, or jazz joints will lead to far more adventures, and memorable times than a grand tour of famous places. It doesn’t even have to be your passions; it could be a friend’s, family member’s, or even one you’ve read about. The point is to get away from the expected into the unexpected.

Noo and I did this by travelling round Tokyo and parts of Japan hunting for great yarn shops. We saw a very different slice of Tokyo and its suburbs. Recommended!

And,

If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance. They fulfill their filial duty and you will get easy entry into a local’s home, and a very high chance to taste some home cooking. Mother, driver, and you leave happy. This trick rarely fails.

I did this in Indonesia, Sulawesi. It does work! I had quite a memorable home cooked feast for very cheap.

And, something I don’t think I have done but would consider:

Here in brief is the method I’ve honed to optimize a two-week vacation: When you arrive in a new country, immediately proceed to the farthest, most remote, most distant place you intend to reach during the trip. If there is a small village, remote spa, a friend’s farm, or a wild place you plan on seeing on the trip, go there immediately. Do not stop near the airport. Do not rest overnight in the arrival city. Do not pause to acclimate. If at all possible proceed by plane, bus, jeep, car directly to the furthest point without interruption. Make it an overnight journey if you have to. Then once you reach your furthest point, unpack, explore, and work your way slowly back to the big city, wherever your international departure airport is.

In other words you make a laser-straight rush for the end, and then meander back. Laser out, meander back. This method is somewhat contrary to many people’s first instincts, which are to immediately get acclimated to the culture in the landing city before proceeding to the hinterlands. The thinking is: get a sense of what’s going on, stock up, size up the joint. Then slowly work up to the more challenging, more remote areas. That’s reasonable, but not optimal because most big cities around the world are more similar than different. All big cities these days feel same-same on first arrival. 

All tips are here. 

I watched in the background Woody Harrelson’s movie: Champions. Rotten Tomatoes says:

Woody Harrelson stars in the hilarious and heartwarming story of a former minor-league basketball coach who, after a series of missteps, is ordered by the court to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities. He soon realizes that despite his doubts, together, this team can go further than they ever imagined.

Audiences gives it 95% and critics 59%¹. 

You can very fairly criticise the movie as Cathy Reay does in the Guardian here: Feelgood comedy Champions wins points for casting learning disabled actors – but Hollywood should be aiming higher than the way it treats their characters…

(Reay in part argues that the disabled characters are only a backdrop for Harrelson’s journey arc. If you take the strong form of this as true then it could part diminish the representation plenitude idea. However I think many of the disabled characters do go on journey arcs themselves and perhaps less trope-y ones than Harrelson. I haven’t done a close reading but my background viewing sensed that the non-Harrelson characters were important and at least as important as Harrelson. The complexity of them were I think superior to Harrelson. Still, you could read it as a vehicle for Harrelson. I’m unsure if the 95% positive on Rotten Tomatoes will think so deeply on it, I prefer to read the movie as a vehicle for the team. And the movie itself is not weaving a particularly complex narrative) 

We must have high ambitions for representation of disability on screen. There is something to say, too, about narrative plenitude or lack of it (narrative scarcity).

I think about all of the thousands of mediocre romantic comedies with the standard boy meets girl tropes and normative casting. And then the few sparkling diamonds, your When Harry Met Sallys and Before Sun Rises, which elevate the tropes to something more satisfying. These can sparkle in part because there are so many mediocre ones.

So to have an ordinary drama with a learning disabled cast is at least adding to a body of stories. A Before Sunrise-level quality movie with disabled people richly characterised is the goal, but perhaps these crummy movies have their place, too. If the rom-com (and Ben Affleck and J-Lo) can survive a movie as bad as Gigli, then perhaps even a lower quality film like Champions might inch us closer to a diamond. 

My brilliant friend, Chi Thai drew my attention to this idea of plenitude drawing from Viet Thanh Nguyen. If interested, check out her picture book - pre-order now! 

The poignant story of one family's perilous journey from Vietnam to the UK.

On the first day, we ate rice cakes.

On the second day, they were all gone.

On the third day, the water ran out.

On the fourth day, we reached the sea…

This picture-book tells the true story of Chi Thai’s refugee crossing from Vietnam to the UK, at just four years old ... leaving her home behind, and setting out across the vastness of the sea in a tiny boat. It's a deeply personal account, rooted in important history – and yet, her story resonates with those of families all over the world today, forced to make perilous journeys of their own. 

Amazon on her book here. Pre-orders really help.

Other writers have discussed narrative scarcity / plenitude - in particular Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her talk, the danger of a single story. But I found Nguyen first through Chi… I think Nguyen would argue:

…narrative scarcity has several negative effects on underrepresented communities:

1. A Single Story Becomes the Default

   • If the only well-known narratives about Vietnamese people revolve around the Vietnam War, then Vietnamese identities become trapped in a war narrative.

   • A lack of diverse stories means one kind of story gets mistaken for the entire reality of a group.

2. Burden of Representation

   • When only a handful of narratives exist, those few stories are expected to "speak for" an entire community.

   • For example, The Sympathizer—Nguyen’s novel—might be seen as "the" Vietnamese refugee story, even though there are millions of different Vietnamese experiences.

3. Lack of Creative Freedom

   • While white writers can create anything—fantasy, romance, horror, experimental fiction—marginalized writers are often expected to write only about their trauma or focus on issues of identity and oppression.

   • This restricts the creative freedom of nonwhite writers and prevents richer storytelling.

So, I am glad I could see a learning disabled feel good basket ball story even if it’s only a small step towards plenitude.

Within that movie there was a scene where someone was singing on the bus with headphones on, oblivious to the world. After a complaint, Harrelson’s character in defence replies there is no sign against singing (on the bus).

I find myself in that situation very many times and it really resonated with me probably in a way it would not with many typical families. However, I would go to say on a number of occasions when you have a teenager belting out the songs to a Nintendo Mario character somewhat oblivious to the world of the bus - you can on occasion change the atmosphere of the bus from tired and zoned out, to bemused and engaged and that is something to behold - when an unexpected other event breaks people into smiles. Then again, I’ve also had the situation portrayed in the movie with an irate passenger… still, perhaps it’s worth it for the times it brings joy - not that I can do too much about it…

I don’t think the movie is going to make your top 10, but I am fairly sure you have seen many worse movies as well so feel free to check it out.

Still dipping into Kate Briggs, and from her, I discovered that Virginia Woolf made a 1937 radio broadcast On Craftmanship. 

In this talk, Woolf reflects on the complexities of words, their meanings, and their evolution over time.

…they mean one thing to one person, another thing to another person; they are unintelligible to one generation, plain as a pikestaff to the next…

Themes and Ideas:

• The Nature of Words: Woolf begins by acknowledging that words are rich with echoes, memories, and associations. She notes that words have been used for centuries, accumulating various meanings and connotations, which can make them challenging to use effectively in writing.

• The Challenge of Language Evolution: She observes that while it's easy to invent new words, integrating them into the existing language is difficult due to the deep-rooted associations of older words. This interplay between old and new words presents a unique challenge for writers aiming to convey fresh ideas. 

• Words in the Mind: Woolf emphasizes that words do not live in dictionaries but in the mind. She suggests that words are not static; they are dynamic and live in the mind, constantly evolving and interacting with each other.

• The Democratic Nature of Words: She highlights the democratic nature of words, noting that they do not discriminate between educated and uneducated usage. Words are highly democratic; they believe that one word is as good as another; uneducated words are as good as educated words, uncultivated words as cultivated words, there are no ranks or titles in their society.

• The Need for Privacy: Woolf concludes by suggesting that, like individuals, words need privacy to flourish. She proposes that in order to use words properly, writers must think and feel before using them, allowing for a pause and unconsciousness that enables words to come together in perfect combinations, creating beauty and truth. 

Transcript here of the talk and a link to her voice. It’s about 10 minutes and she sounds a quite like Queen Elizabeth II.

Events:

I am hosting a meet-up on Mon 17 March in London, if you want to come long please do. A wide mix of people turn up. RSVP here. 

I am going to be in Boston from 2 March for a few days. Let me know if we should meet!

I am hosting an UnConference for Emergent Ventures winners + Friends. If you think this might be you (as a friend who might benefit from an EV UnConference meet-up) let me know and will send an invite. Brief details:

• Date: Sat 26 April, 2025

• Time: 9am for 10am - 5pm then also dinner.

• Venue: Central London

What is an UnConference?

Unlike traditional conferences with pre-set agendas and passive listeners, an UnConference invites all attendees to participate actively. Everyone is encouraged to propose topics, lead discussions, and contribute to conversations in a meaningful way.

While a conventional conference treats attendees like a passive audience to be entertained by the organizers, the UnConference format gives everyone a say by building something together.

Finally if you made it to the end - Welcome to all those recent joiners to the newsletter from Naomi Fisher’s letter. If you are interested in the education strand of my writing and pods then check out my podcast with Naomi Fisher on self-directed education with a UK perspective and also Peter Gray with a US view. The pod with Daisy Christodoulou on the importance of knowledge in education (and also video assisted referees) is also good here.

Thanks and be well.

1. from Guardian Kermode review: “…What makes Champions a treat is the deftness with which Mark Rizzo’s script sidesteps sentimentality in favour of something more raucously truthful, conjuring fully rounded characters with believably messy lives, all delivered with Dodgeball-style sporting chutzpah. As for the cast, they are terrific, with the screen newcomers more than holding their own against more seasoned players. Of course, the Farrelly brothers have a long history of diverse casting, with the US philanthropic Ruderman Family Foundation presenting them in 2020 with an award “in recognition of their advocacy for the inclusive and authentic representation of people with disabilities in the entertainment industry”. But the Champions ensemble takes this to the next level, showcasing a host of rising talent, with particular plaudits to Tevlin and Iannucci, both of whom have scene-stealing charisma and note-perfect comic timing to spare.”